From Immigrant Hustler to Real Estate Titan: Rod Khleif’s Psychology of Building & Rebuilding Empires

 

From Immigrant Hustler to Real Estate Titan: Rod Khleif’s Psychology of Building & Rebuilding Empires

 

Guest: From wearing hand-me-downs to owning thousands of doors, Rod Khleif’s real estate journey is one of epic upswings and gut-wrenching falls. He immigrated to the US at 6, faced childhood poverty, and built a real estate empire, only to lose millions in the 2008 crash. But Rod bounced back, fueled by an unshakeable mindset and a deep understanding of psychology’s role in success. Today, he’s a multi-millionaire, podcast host, and mentor, sharing his hard-won wisdom to help others avoid his pitfalls and achieve their own real estate dreams.

 

Big Idea: Real estate success isn’t just about brick and mortar; it’s about mastering the mental game. In this episode, Rod reveals the powerful mindset strategies that helped him climb back from rock bottom, and how anyone can leverage psychology to overcome fear, limiting beliefs, and market downturns. He emphasizes goal setting, decisive action, and resilience as the cornerstones of building and rebuilding real estate empires.

 

 

    

Dan Breslin: All right Rod Khleif. Welcome back to the REI Diamond Show. How you doing today?

Rod Khleif: Good buddy. It’s great to see you again man. And It’s so cool to know that you’re right up the street. But what’s really cool, is we’re both wearing the same freaking watch which you know [crosstalk]. We both have these gorgeous Hublot Big Bang watches on. Our favorite brand. And so that was really crazy. It’s the first time that’s ever happened to me. So, very cool. Well it’s great to see you man. Thanks for having me back.

Dan: Yeah we are. Hey you too. So if listeners want to go check out the original episode. I want to say this was in 2021 if I’m not mistaken. But the title was “Making them losing 50 million bucks with Rod Khleif”. And I hate to brand you that, the money-losing guy. Because that’s not who you are and you recover from that. But why don’t you give any listeners who may not have caught that original episode, Rod. Give them a brief rundown and what that looks like, and then how your business is grown today.

Rod: Sure. Well, first of all it sucked, okay. It was no fun at all. Let me say that. But let me back up a little bit down real quick and just give a brief history on me. So, I’m an immigrant. I was born in the Netherlands, wooden shoes and windmills. Immigrated when I was 6, with my brother Albert and My mother’s mancha[?]. Ended up in Denver Colorado where we lived for 30 years. Struggled initially. I wore hand-me-down clothes from the Goodwill and the Salvation Army. We eat expired food, believe it or not. They had a store that sold expired food, drank powdered milk with our cereal in the morning. I mean really struggled.

But my mom had an incredible work ethic. So she babysat kids so we would have enough money to eat. And with her babysitting money, she was a bit of an entrepreneur and she’s the reason I got into real estate. Because she used that babysitting money and bought the house across the street from us when I was about 14, for 30 grand. Then when I was 17, she told me she’d made $20,000 in her sleep, it gone up in value. I said, “What? You made 20…”, this is when 20 Grand was a lot of money, okay? And I said, “You met 20 grand and you didn’t do anything?”. Forget College, I’m getting into real estate.

 

This Episode of The REI Diamonds Show is Sponsored by the Deal Machine. This Software Enables Real Estate Investors to Develop a Reliable & Low Cost Source of Off Market Deals. For a Limited Time, You Get Free Access at http://REIDealMachine.com/

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://RodKhleif.com/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Rod Khleif & I Discuss How to:

  • Discover how a single, resolute decision can propel you from observer to active investor.
  • Learn to navigate the fear of the unknown and take that crucial first step in the dark.
  • Reframe fear as an illusion and leverage it for action and a positive mindset.
  • Identify and crush the limiting beliefs holding you back from unleashing your full potential.

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 236 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Real Estate Uncovered: Building Success and Weathering the Storm with Doug Faron

 

Real Estate Uncovered: Building Success and Weathering the Storm with Doug Faron

 

Guest: Doug’s extensive experience in the real estate industry, combined with his innovative strategies, has made him a sought-after expert in the field. Throughout his career, he has successfully navigated high-growth markets, mastered the art of property management, and achieved remarkable returns on investments. Join us as Doug shares his invaluable insights, practical tips, and the secrets behind his real estate success.

 

Big Idea: In this episode, we sit down with Doug Faron, a highly experienced real estate investor and operator with a remarkable track record in the industry. Doug provides valuable insights into his journey, emphasizing the importance of maintaining family values while building a successful real estate business. He shares his expertise in navigating the real estate market, even during challenging periods, and highlights the key factors that have contributed to his achievements.

 

 

    

 

Dan: Yeah, for sure. When the booking request came through, I was personally most excited about the operator, developer. You guys have a huge background, Shoreham Capital of very large projects. It seems like from all the research that I’ve done, I probably can’t do as much justice on an introduction as you, so why don’t I give you the floor, allow you to give an intro on kind of your career, [inaudible] capital and what the trajectory of you work guys investment strategy looks like today.

Doug: Sure. Perfect. Well, again, thanks for having me and happy to introduce myself and then tell you a little bit about Shoreham Capital. My name is Doug Feron and I’ve spent most of my career on the institutional investment side of the real estate business. I started my career in investment banking. I then went to work in corporate private equity for a number of years and then transitioned after business school to real estate private equity, working with a firm called the CIM group based out in Los Angeles. I spent about 10 years at CIM, had a really great experience and ultimately was a managing director on their investment team and running their East Coast investment practice. But I had shifted from corporate to real estate really looking at one book, being very interested in the asset class and also being interested in trying to do something entrepreneurial.

One day I felt that in real estate there was a much bigger opportunity for that than corporate private equity. So after about 10 years with CIM, I was doing some family events and otherwise decided it was the right time to take a look and looking for a seed to that thesis or a seed for that business. One of the areas I’ve been really interested in at the firm and we’d been working on a white paper on was single-family rental. I had been pursuing that and through a friend was introduced to one of my partners, Nick Zumas, who’s a sizeable home builder in both New York and Florida. In meeting Nick, we sat down and had the opportunity to sort of flush out a business plan to shift a lot of his forward pipeline from for sale to for rent but along the backs of that, build a larger real estate developer operator investor that would do both traditional multi-family, both ground up and value add, alternatives like build to rent single-family rental senior student, and then also still have an allocation for special situations and the background I had of doing different asset classes, debt and equity, wherever the sort, the opportunistic opportunity is.

 

This Episode of The REI Diamonds Show is Sponsored by the Deal Machine. This Software Enables Real Estate Investors to Develop a Reliable & Low Cost Source of Off Market Deals. For a Limited Time, You Get Free Access at http://REIDealMachine.com/

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://ShorehamCapital.com/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Doug Faron & I Discuss Building Success and Weathering the Storm:

  • The foundation and vision of Shoreham Capital.
  • Successfully managing large real estate development projects.
  • Strategies for weathering the storm in a challenging real estate market.
  • Insights into the cost and yield considerations for real estate projects.
  • The importance of location, entitlement risk, and site plan approval.

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 234 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Family Values & Real Estate Investing with Jim Sheils, A #1 Wall Street Journal Best Seller

 

Family Values & Real Estate Investing with Jim Sheils, A #1 Wall Street Journal Best Seller

 

Guest: Jim Sheils is a seasoned real estate investor, #1 Wall Street Journal Best Seller and founder of 18 Summers, a family education company. Jim shares his journey from clueless investor to building a thriving real estate business while putting family first.

 

Big Idea: From his early days as a clueless investor in California to his thriving new construction projects in Florida, Jim’s career is a testament to resilience and adaptation. Beyond his real estate prowess, Jim is known for his family education company, “18 Summers,” which advocates spending one-on-one time with loved ones every quarter, fostering deep connections and lasting memories. Discover the power of intermittent tech fasting, detaching from distractions during these moments, and prioritizing family to achieve a harmonious balance between personal and professional life.

 

 

    

 

Jim: Yeah, sure. Like most of us, I started out pretty clueless 24 years ago. I remember the first offer I had accepted in Lompoc, California for 152,000 on a three-family house. And I hyperventilated in my kitchen when it got accepted because that just seemed way above my anything. And that was the first deal. And I went into a pretty active model in the central California area, a place called Bakersfield, buying, fixing, and reselling, and renting HUD foreclosures. I did that for a number of years. It was crazy in California. I didn’t like the landlord laws or the taxes. I’d always liked Florida. I had grandparents there and went off to Florida and started doing the same thing. The meltdown happened, which was not fun but we survived it and there were tons of deals. So we went into bulk foreclosures, buying, fixing, and reselling HUD foreclosures, not HUD foreclosures, bank foreclosures. Fixing them up, keeping our own portfolio, working with investors. And then by about 2015, we just got two screwy around here. It was getting bid up, you had to cut corners as a rehabber. So my now building partner and I said, well, what if we could build our own houses in properties instead of finding old ones? And that started as about a $3 million experiment and bring it up to last year we did 185 million in sales. So we build new construction only. No more rehabs. Rehab shoes got hung up. We’re just new construction, single-family, duplexes, and quads are our main focus. And we’re in high-growth markets in Florida. And all that means is markets that are experiencing economic growth, population growth, have a good affordability index, healthy supply and demand, and something desirable drawing them to the area.

Dan: Fantastic. Before I go down the tangents of real estate-specific questions, and we’re going to dive deep into that in a few minutes, but you have 18 Summers on the wall behind you. And for the listeners who are in the audio version only, we’re on the video, you could check that out on YouTube. Would you mind kind of touching on that and the family values-driven nature of how you’ve built your career over the past decade-plus?

Jim: Yeah, about, whew, 12 years ago, my wife and I started 18 Summers. It was just a simple family education company that was doing some retreats and workshops, and it was about bringing families together with this simple premise. We wanted to be successful in business and at home. And getting invited to some real estate events at a young age, Dan, I got to get too close to some heroes with huge balance sheets and absolute nightmare personal lives. And I didn’t want to be like that. I was like, I don’t think it has to be that way. And now a father of five, myself ranging from two to 20 and both biological and adoptive, it was just a big value that I held for myself. So it was really built out of a need for my own that I didn’t want to fail at home. So how could we find easier ways to get it done? How could we be more present at home? How could we bring more families together to kind of mastermind, if you would, family life and how to be more engaged and enjoyable? And that’s where 18 Summers started and our book came out of just some simple stories and strategies we were using at home and just got a following that we were not expecting. So it was an unexpected thing, but I’d say I’m definitely known more for family than I am for real estate, and I’m okay with that.

 

This Episode of The REI Diamonds Show is Sponsored by the Deal Machine. This Software Enables Real Estate Investors to Develop a Reliable & Low Cost Source of Off Market Deals. For a Limited Time, You Get Free Access at http://REIDealMachine.com/

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

www.jjplaybook.com

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Jim Sheils & I Discuss Family Values & Real Estate Investing:

  • The art of balancing family values and business success.

  • The “18 Summers” paradigm which emphasizes creating meaningful family connections.

  • How Intermittent tech fasting fosters mindful living.

  • How Build-to-rent opportunities can lead to an evolution in real estate investing.

  • Methods to mitigate risks in high-growth markets through new construction.

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 225 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.